Thursday, June 9, 2011

How Does God build Your Faith? (Part one of the series)

What I learned at Bible study last night was so on point and I HAD to share it with you!! Pastor Van of TWC located here in Birmingham, is beginning a series about God’s Faith building Process!!! For me this message couldn’t be more on point and again I had to take the time!

There are different levels of Faith that we have, Example: We have enough faith to pray to him, to actually show up to church and to worship him, but do we have enough faith to believe that he will bring us through our situation? (This hit home for me)

Phase 1- He gives us a Dream! God Always starts with a dream! No matter what age or stage you are in life, you should have a dream. If you don’t that means that you have gotten comfortable/complacent!!! (THIS) If you are not sure whether you have a dream or not pray to God and ask him to provide you with his vision for you and your life. God wants us to continue to elevate and to give him the GLORY!

Ephesians 3:20 “Now glory be to God who by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more that we would ever dare to ask or even dream of – infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes!”

Also, if you are wondering if the dream you have aligns with the plan God has for you …. Know that the vision from God will be so big that you will not be able to accomplish it on your on! He wants you to need him and in turn hegets ALL the GLORY!!!!

Phase 2- Decision – You have to make the unwavering decision to act on the dream he has given you. Faith is a VERB! It’s something that you do! James 1:6,8 “ You must believe and not doubt… a double minded man is unstable in all he does”

You will have to Invest- Time, Money, Reputation, and Energy

You will have to let go of: Security (This hit home as well)

Phase 3: DELAY (THIS) – Count on a waiting period between that time that God gives us the dream and the time that he bring it to past!!!! Reasons that God makes us wait include TRUST (building our trust in him) , Timing (he is always on time)and Development (making sure that we are ready).Patience is better that pride and a delay does not equal a denial!

Habakkuk 2:3 (LB) God says, “These things I plan won’t happen right away.Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled.If it seems slow, do not despair, these things will surely come to pass.Just be patient!

Phase 4: Difficulty – There will be problems while you wait. Usually in the form of 1) Circumstances and 2) CRITICS! Expect this but keep the faith! This is also the refining process, filtering all things that cause you to doubt him!

1 Peter 1:6-7 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Phase 5: (my all time favorite): Dead End (we’ve all been here) this is the rock bottom phase; you get here after you have exhausted all resources! This is when you begin to question God to see if you may have gotten something wrong or thinking maybe that you may have missed a turn somewhere!! This is where Pastor Van offers CONGRATULATIONS!! The end is near!!! The question here is, do you still have expectations that God will move?

2 Corinthians 1:10 “ He has delivered and he will deliver us again!”

Phase 6: DELIVERANCE – This is the breakthrough! The moment where we realize that it was nobody but God, and again he gets the Glory!

You will repeat this cycle throughout life, BUT GOD!!! I’m just glad to know that there is a light at the end of every tunnel! I hope you guys appreciate this as much as I did!!!